A hovercraft is a flying machine, a type of air cushion vehicle. When it comes to flying machines, ideas easily date back
to ancient Greece. This is not the case with air cushion vehicles.
The first
recorded design for such a vehicle was in 1716 by Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish
designer, philosopher and theologian. Swedenborg's design appeared in the
fourth edition of Sweden's first scientific journal, Daedulus Hyperboreus, and
is the first detailed technical description of a flying machine of any type.
Swedenborg's man-powered air cushion platform, basically
a circular aircraft, resembled an upside-down boat with a cockpit in the center
or a "flying saucer." His manually-operated device required the
would-be pilot to use oar-like scoops to push air under the vehicle on each
downward stroke in order to raise the hull out of the water. A working model of
the design was never built, because Swedenborg soon realized that a human could
not sustain the energy needed to power the oars. His concept required a source
of energy far greater than any available at that time.
As with many other forms of transportation, significant
progress had to wait until a lightweight motor was developed in the nineteenth
century …
Have a question about hovercraft? Just leave us a comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment